Stephanie Wu struggled with postpartum depression after the birth of each of her two children.  

“When I was really in the depths of it and my son was crying, like he would cry because he saw me crying and he didn’t know how to handle it. And that just made me feel bad,” Wu recalled.  

Her journey brought her to the Motherhood Center of New York. 

“When I came to the Motherhood Center, he knew I was coming here to cry with other mothers,” said Wu. 

The Motherhood Center offers different levels of treatment for expecting moms and birthing people experiencing mood and anxiety disorders through pregnancy and postpartum.  

“These are totally and completely treatable conditions, no matter what the diagnosis is,” said Paige Bellenbaum, the center’s founding director.  

After surviving severe postpartum depression after the birth of her own son, Bellenbaum has dedicated the last two decades to helping others manage their own struggles.  

Paige Bellenbaum struggled with postpartum depression nearly two decades ago. Her experience led her to her work at the Motherhood Center.

“After I got better, I got really, really angry, because the more and more women that I spoke to about how I was feeling said, me too. That happened to me too.” Bellenbaum said. "And nobody was talking about it.” 

At the Motherhood Center, Wu found support through the daily treatment program, which caters to patients in need of high levels of concentrated support for several weeks.  

“I was like, these are my people. Where have you been all my life? Like, where have you been for the last four years of motherhood?” Wu said.  

Attending the program helped her find a community.  

Stephanie Wu struggled with postpartum depression after the birth of each of her two children. Finding community with others who were struggling was key to her recovery.

“It’s like you’re talking to yourself,” she said. “Everybody gets it, and you don't have to explain yourself.”  

That community helped Wu recognize the depths of her own struggle.  

“I realized as I was sitting in this room with all these other people, I was just like, ‘I’m really having a hard time.’” 

The Motherhood Center, founded in 2017, provides several virtual and in-person treatment options in addition to the day program. This allows Dr. Catherine Birndorf, co-founder of the center, to customize care for each patient.  

"We can treat all these things,” said Birndorf. “It's not super secret special sauce.” 

A center dedicated strictly to perinatal mood and anxiety disorders is a novel approach. The day program is the first of its kind in the nation, but experts and advocates alike hope it's just the beginning of a larger effort to address the crisis.

“I think the real tipping point was a couple of years ago, when the CDC released their findings around maternal mortality rates in the U.S., and they found that 23% of all maternal deaths in this country were a direct result of suicide and substance use,” said Bellenbaum.  

The report mobilized the federal government. In 2021, Medicaid coverage for postpartum care was extended to a full year after giving birth. The change was a huge win for mental health advocates, who say most postpartum symptoms arise six to nine months after birth. That was followed by the creation of the National Maternal Mental Health hotline in 2022.  

“We've seen an explosion,” Bellenbaum said. “More policies, more political efforts and government efforts, more funding streams, more public awareness, more best practices being circulated in the health care system. Maternal mental health has become a priority.” 

Last May, Health and Human Services announced $65 million in funding for centers providing maternal mental health support, with a focus on underserved communities in rural areas.  

Adrienne Griffen, the executive director of the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, applauds the moves by the federal government, but says more needs to be done.  

“We need more mental health providers. We need more physicians who know how to talk about this. We need more psychiatrists, we need more doulas,” Griffin said.  

One way to get more boots on the ground, Griffin says, is to enlist existing providers to identify patients in need.  

“Whether it's your family physician, your internist, your obstetrician, they should be able to at least handle sort of, you know, generalized anxiety and depression,” said Griffin. 

“We want to catch it before this becomes a problem.” 

Large-scale efforts are important, but making sure individual patients feel empowered to speak up is key.  

“If you know something's wrong, something's wrong,” Birndorf said.  

Griffin says it’s important that women know they can seek help without fearing stigma.  

“You are not a bad mom. These are thoughts. These are changes in your body. You are not a bad person because you're experiencing them and in fact, acknowledging them and reaching out for help makes you a really good mom,” Griffin said. 

After graduating from the Motherhood Center day program, Wu continued to navigate recurrent depression.  

“Being in the program was like coping with like learning that I wasn't necessarily going to be fixed, but that I was getting the tools to manage it better,” Wu explained.  The experience also inspired her to help other mothers who may be struggling with their mental and physical health.  

“I felt so alone for so long,” said Wu. “I don’t want other moms to feel so alone. So if there's anything I can do, I want to be a part of that. And I just want to be surrounded by others who understand the experience. It's therapeutic for me too." 

Watch our first report in this series here: Patients and doctors sound the alarm on the maternal mental health crisis